Maisie watched the face working in the moonlight.
'You've plenty of pennies now,' she said soothingly.
'I shall never have enough,' he began, with vicious emphasis. Then, laughing, 'I shall always be three-pence short in my accounts.'
'Why threepence?'
'I carried a man's bag once from Liverpool Street Station to Blackfriar's Bridge. It was a sixpenny job,--you needn't laugh; indeed it was,--and Iwanted the money desperately. He only gave me threepence; and he hadn't even the decency to pay in silver. Whatever money I make, I shall never get that odd threepence out of the world.'
This was not language befitting the man who had preached of the sanctity of work. It jarred on Maisie, who preferred her payment in applause, which, since all men desire it, must be of he right. She hunted for her little purse and gravely took out a threepenny bit.
'There it is,' she said. 'I'll pay you, Dickie; and don't worry any more; it isn't worth while. Are you paid?'
'I am,' said the very human apostle of fair craft, taking the coin. 'I'm paid a thousand times, and we'll close that account. It shall live on my watch-chain; and you're an angel, Maisie.'
'I'm very cramped, and I'm feeling a little cold. Good gracious! the cloak is all white, and so is your moustache! I never knew it was so chilly.'
A light frost lay white on the shoulder of Dick's ulster. He, too, had forgotten the state of the weather. They laughed together, and with that laugh ended all serious discourse.
They ran inland across the waste to warm themselves, then turned to look at the glory of the full tide under the moonlight and the intense black shadows of the furze bushes. It was an additional joy to Dick that Maisie could see colour even as he saw it,--could see the blue in the white of the mist, the violet that is in gray palings, and all things else as they are,--not of one hue, but a thousand. And the moonlight came into Maisie's soul, so that she, usually reserved, chattered of herself and of the things she took interest in,--of Kami, wisest of teachers, and of the girls in the studio,--of the Poles, who will kill themselves with overwork if they are not checked; of the French, who talk at great length of much more than they will ever accomplish; of the slovenly English, who toil hopelessly and cannot understand that inclination does not imply power;of the Americans, whose rasping voices in the hush of a hot afternoon strain tense-drawn nerves to breaking-point, and whose suppers lead to indigestion; of tempestuous Russians, neither to hold nor to bind, who tell the girls ghost-stories till the girls shriek; of stolid Germans, who come to learn one thing, and, having mastered that much, stolidly go away and copy pictures for evermore. Dick listened enraptured because it was Maisie who spoke. He knew the old life.
'It hasn't changed much,' he said. 'Do they still steal colours at lunch-time?'
'Not steal. Attract is the word. Of course they do. I'm good--I only attract ultramarine; but there are students who'd attract flake-white.'
'I've done it myself. You can't help it when the palettes are hung up.
Every colour is common property once it runs down,--even though you do start it with a drop of oil. It teaches people not to waste their tubes.'
'I should like to attract some of your colours, Dick. Perhaps I might catch your success with them.'
'I mustn't say a bad word, but I should like to. What in the world, which you've just missed a lovely chance of seeing, does success or want of success, or a three-storied success, matter compared with---- No, I won't open that question again. It's time to go back to town.'
'I'm sorry, Dick, but----'
'You're much more interested in that than you are in me.'
'I don't know, I don't think I am.'
'What will you give me if I tell you a sure short-cut to everything you want,--the trouble and the fuss and the tangle and all the rest? Will you promise to obey me?'
'Of course.'
'In the first place, you must never forget a meal because you happen to be at work. You forgot your lunch twice last week,' said Dick, at a venture, for he knew with whom he was dealing.'
'No, no,--only once, really.'
'That's bad enough. And you mustn't take a cup of tea and a biscuit in place of a regular dinner, because dinner happens to be a trouble.'
'You're making fun of me!'
'I never was more in earnest in my life. Oh, my love, my love, hasn't it dawned on you yet what you are to me? Here's the whole earth in a conspiracy to give you a chill, or run over you, or drench you to the skin, or cheat you out of your money, or let you die of overwork and underfeeding, and I haven't the mere right to look after you. Why, Idon't even know if you have sense enough to put on warm things when the weather's cold.'
'Dick, you're the most awful boy to talk to--really! How do you suppose Imanaged when you were away?'
